Jones v. State

In Spence v. State, 51 Md. App. 359 (1982), we held that it was not an abuse of discretion for a judge to deny a mistrial after having inadvertently decided a case submitted on motion for judgment of acquittal at the conclusion of all evidence upon the misunderstanding that it was submitted generally and the misunderstanding was corrected by striking the (unrecorded) verdict in order to permit counsel to argue the case. Because the case was tried non-jury, we believed the trial judge’s statement that he was open to persuasion despite his inclination from the evidence toward the defendant’s…